The Empathy Gap

How responses to crisis reveal leadership priorities

Crisis response offers perhaps the clearest window into a leader’s core priorities and values. By examining Trump’s verified responses to various disasters and emergencies across both terms, a pattern emerges that raises important questions about the role of empathy in American leadership.

Puerto Rico vs. Texas: A Tale of Two Disaster Responses

The contrast in Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico versus Hurricane Harvey in Texas during his first term reveals a fundamental empathy gap. According to FEMA records, federal disaster aid arrived in Texas within 3 days of Hurricane Harvey’s landfall in August 2017, while Puerto Rico waited nearly two weeks for comparable assistance following Hurricane Maria in September 2017.

The rhetoric showed an equally stark contrast. After Hurricane Harvey, Trump told survivors in Texas on September 2, 2017: “We’re going to get you back and operating immediately.” For Puerto Rico, his comments focused primarily on criticism, including his October 12, 2017 tweet: “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”

When visiting Puerto Rico on October 3, 2017, Trump’s most memorable interaction involved tossing paper towels to survivors, an action widely criticized as lacking empathy. By contrast, his visits to Houston included hugging children and expressing deep concern for victims.

The financial response showed similar disparities. According to a 2021 HUD Inspector General report, Texas received approval for 123 disaster recovery projects within six months of Hurricane Harvey, while Puerto Rico’s comparable projects faced significant delays with only 14 approved in the same timeframe after Maria.

The Human Cost of Selective Empathy

The consequences of this empathy gap extend beyond optics. A 2018 BMJ study found that the delayed and insufficient federal response to Hurricane Maria contributed to a significantly higher excess death rate compared to similar disasters with more robust federal support.

Harvard researchers published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimating that delayed medical care and infrastructure restoration in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria resulted in 4,645 excess deaths—far exceeding the initial official death toll of 64.

Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate noted in 2019 Congressional testimony: “Disaster response requires putting politics and personalities aside. The goal must always be to reduce suffering as quickly as possible, regardless of where the disaster occurs.”

Pattern Continuation: COVID Response

The empathy gap continued during the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked about rising U.S. death tolls in March 2020, Trump responded: “I think we’ve done a great job.” As deaths surpassed 200,000 in September 2020, his assessment was: “I think we’ve done an amazing job…in some ways we’ve done the best job.”

The most revealing moment came in October 2020, when Trump himself contracted COVID-19. After receiving experimental treatments unavailable to most Americans, he told the public: “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” This message came as thousands of Americans were dying weekly without access to the specialized care he received.

Bob Woodward’s recorded interviews with Trump revealed that the president deliberately downplayed the virus despite understanding its severity. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, 2020. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

Expert Assessments

Public health officials have noted the impact of this empathy gap on crisis management. Dr. Anthony Fauci, in his July 2021 New York Times interview after leaving government service, observed: “Effective public health communication during a crisis requires acknowledging suffering and expressing genuine concern. Without that empathetic foundation, even the best scientific guidance struggles to gain public trust.”

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley noted in his 2020 CNN analysis: “There’s a tradition of presidents serving as ‘consoler-in-chief’ during national crises, transcending political divisions to acknowledge shared suffering. This role requires genuine empathy and a willingness to connect with all Americans in pain.”

Former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican, said on CNN in April 2020: “When crisis strikes, people aren’t looking for someone to blame. They’re looking for help and basic human recognition of their suffering. That’s not a Democratic or Republican expectation—it’s a human one.”

Administrative Actions Reflect Priorities

Official administrative actions further demonstrate the empathy gap. According to the Federal Register, the Trump administration implemented 65 separate regulatory rollbacks affecting disaster preparedness and response between 2017-2021, including reducing funding for FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program by 61%.

The Government Accountability Office’s 2020 report found that “political considerations” influenced disaster declaration decisions in multiple cases, with the report specifically citing “inconsistent application of damage assessment criteria” between different states affected by similar disasters.

During his second term, Trump’s first budget proposal in February 2025 included a 43% reduction in climate resilience funding and a 27% cut to FEMA’s disaster relief fund, drawing criticism from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers from disaster-prone states.

Economic Consequences of Empathy Deficits

The economic costs of disaster response delays are quantifiable. Moody’s Analytics’ 2018 assessment of Hurricane Maria response found that delayed federal assistance likely increased total recovery costs by an estimated $45 billion due to cascading infrastructure failures that could have been prevented with earlier intervention.

Similarly, researchers at the University of Washington’s Department of Economics published a peer-reviewed 2021 study finding that counties receiving faster federal disaster assistance recovered economically 2.4 times faster than those experiencing delayed responses of similar disasters.

Adam Millsap, senior fellow at the market-oriented Charles Koch Institute, wrote in a 2020 Forbes article: “It’s fiscally irresponsible to delay disaster response based on political considerations. Early intervention is almost always more cost-effective than waiting until a disaster has escalated. When politics delays response, taxpayers ultimately foot a much larger bill.”

The Historical Context

The empathy gap appears even more striking when compared to previous administrations of both parties. After Hurricane Katrina, President George W. Bush acknowledged in his September 15, 2005 address: “The system, at every level of government, was not well-coordinated, and was overwhelmed in the first few days…to the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.”

Similarly, President Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy included embracing Republican Governor Chris Christie during a visit to New Jersey and stating: “We are here for you, and we will not forget. We will follow up to make sure you get all the help you need until you rebuild.”

Beyond Politics: The Leadership Question

This pattern transcends normal policy disagreements or administrative efficiency concerns. Former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci observed in his 2021 MSNBC interview: “There’s a fundamental lack of empathy that affected every aspect of crisis management. It wasn’t a policy choice but a character limitation.”

Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, who worked on multiple GOP presidential campaigns, wrote in his 2020 book “It Was All a Lie”: “Crisis management requires the ability to project empathy and understanding of others’ suffering. Without that capacity, even technically correct policy responses fall short because they fail to address the human dimensions of crisis.”

As climate scientists predict increasingly severe weather events in the coming years, the administration’s approach to disaster response may face greater scrutiny. The question remains whether an empathy deficit in disaster response is merely a temporary political calculation or a more fundamental shift in how federal aid is conceptualized and delivered to Americans in crisis.